this is a state of grace
by lydiamaartin
Summary: He's still stupidly hungover by the time he runs into Stiles in the library, though Stiles seems fresh as a daisy. Terrific. He's already showered, too, which means Scott can't judge the level of sex hair he might have been sporting earlier. Not that he cares. / or, there's no such thing as werewolves and Scott might be in love with his best friend. - ScottStiles


**disclaimer:** i don't own teen wolf

**notes:** this is an all-human au aka no werewolves, no magic, just normal teenagers (they can be in college or in high school, whatever you want)

* * *

Here's the thing – Malia Tate is a perfectly nice, if a bit abrasive, intelligent, and funny girl with pretty hair and soft skin and _Scott gets it_. She's cute and she can handle her alcohol and really, what's not to like? There is _no reason_ for him not to like her. Because he does. Clearly.

Voicing this opinion out loud garners him only a fondly exasperated look from Allison, who leans over to speak into his ear over the blaring music of the house party they were at, saying, "It's okay to be jealous, Scott," and smiling like she knows all his secrets.

Which, well, she kinda does. They used to date, they're still friends, she's probably his best friend who's not Stiles at this point. He loves her, he really does, but sometimes she's _wrong_. Not very often – actually, almost never – but sometimes. She must be. She's wrong about this.

"I'm not jealous," he repeats insistently like it's a mantra, or a lifeline, maybe. "Why would I be jealous? Everything's great. Malia's cool. Stiles is happy." And, okay, so he might be a little tipsy. Just a little. And he might have spent the majority of the past hour leaning against a wall and sulking in the general direction of the couch that Stiles and Malia were currently making out on. _Might_ have.

"Whatever you say," Allison hums, sing-song against the skin of his neck, before stealing the cup of alcohol out of his hand and tossing it in the trash so she can intertwine their fingers. "Come on, let's take your mind off how totally _not_ jealous you are," she suggests cheerfully and begins to drag him out onto the dance floor.

"I can't dance," Scott protests, which is maybe partly a lie, swiveling his head to keep Stiles and Malia in sight. _They_ certainly aren't dancing. Did Stiles have his hand up her shirt? Fuck, he worked fast. It took Scott four full dates to get Allison's shirt off. _Unfair_.

"Stop moping," Allison instructs him, tossing her arms around his neck so he has to face her instead of Stiles and Malia. "You're bringing the mood down," as if Scott himself personally had the power to influence the mood of the hundred-odd people crammed into some rich upperclassman's manor house. Scott makes a face at her.

"I don't mope," he mutters, and Allison only laughs and spins around in his arms. She's still pretty, and he might still be a little in love with her. Not enough to stop frowning in the general direction of Stiles and Malia, though. Not nearly enough for that.

-:-

Lydia finds him when he's made his way out to the less crowded gardens to sit on the edge of a dolphin-shaped fountain, when he's maybe a little more than tipsy and lot past the point of _not jealous_. She, naturally, looks totally perfectly put-together even though he knows for a fact she'd been making out with some guy not even half an hour ago when he'd left the dance floor.

Lydia Martin is a work of art, he muses thoughtfully, lifting a half-empty beer can to his lips as he waits for her to say something. She doesn't disappoint.

"You're being an idiot," which, quite honestly, is what she thinks of most of the human population, he's pretty sure, so he tries not to take it personally.

"Sorry, we can't all have Einstein-level IQs," he shoots at her, gulping down more beer. It tastes awful. Why is he drinking it again? _Oh_, right, because Stiles had been shirtless on that couch with Malia last time he saw them. Frowning, he chugs more down and wonders if anyone's invented an automatically refilling beer can yet.

Lydia rolls her eyes loudly, in that way she tends to do, and sits down next to him with a huff, smoothing out her skirt. She's pretty, too, he finds himself thinking. Not like Allison pretty, not all sharp angles and lean physique and short dark curls with leather jackets and boots. More like Aphrodite instead of Artemis, all shiny red hair and flower-dotted skirts and high-high-_high_ heels that still don't make her as tall as him. She's an ocean, all elusively majestic grandeur, and Allison is the forest, warm and tall and solid.

Now that he thinks about it, Isaac may have been right when he'd called Scott a _poetic drunk_.

"Are you going to admit you're in love with your best friend?" she demands of him, and he eyes her thoughtfully for a moment. She's drumming her fingers on the cool stone edge of the fountain beneath them, not even remotely tipsy, which is also unfair. Everything about his life seems unfair all of a sudden. How come _Malia_ got Stiles' shirt off?

"No," he finally says bluntly, and offers her the almost-finished can of beer. Lydia stares at him, then sighs and accepts it, gulping down the last bit of beer left inside. They sit together like that, the water bubbling at their backs and the night sky up above, in comfortable quiet for what seems like hours. It's nice, in it's own way. Lydia can be nice, if she wants to be.

-:-

Isaac's got this weird habit of showing up places and leaning against walls and smirking when you ask him what the hell he's doing. Scott knows this because he's been living with Isaac for about a year, and it never gets less confounding. The guy moves like a fucking cat, or…some other animal that's quiet. Scott doesn't know; he's too hungover to think about it right now.

"Stop talking," he complains, even though Isaac hasn't said anything yet. "My head hurts."

"Yeah, drinking your way through a fucking wine cooler will do that to you," Isaac says agreeably. Scott scowls up at him from the bed – is it his bed? _Hopefully_ – and sinks back down into the pillows. "Man, you got wasted at that party. What even happened? Did you hook up with a girl?"

"Let's hope not," Scott sighs, pressing a palm to his forehead and squeezing his eyes shut against the sunlight. "That is the last thing I need right now."

Isaac's still looking at him. He's also got this way of making his gaze so intense, it gets hard to breathe. And he won't _stop_ either. "Did you hook up with a guy, then?"

Scott throws the closest pillow at him. There's a _whoosh_ that indicates Isaac has caught it rather than letting it hit him, and then the pillow sails back through the air and lands right next to Scott on the bed with a _thump_. Damn that boy's reflexes.

"Do you know where Stiles is?" Isaac inquires, totally casual. _Ha_. As if Allison hadn't put him up to this. Or maybe it'd been Lydia. Scott can't keep track of which girl Isaac is sleeping with. Or wants to sleep with. Whatever _that_ whole situation is. Maybe it's both.

"No idea," he grumbles, opening one eye so Isaac can better understand his utter disdain for the question. "How would I know?"

"Oh, he's just your best friend, I suppose you wouldn't really know," Isaac agrees, but even Scott isn't hungover enough to miss the sarcasm beneath the cheerfulness. "Did he and Malia – "

"Shut up," Scott says heavily and throws the pillow again. This time, Isaac takes the hint.

-:-

He's still stupidly hungover by the time he runs into Stiles in the library, though Stiles seems fresh as a fucking daisy. _Terrific_. He's already showered, too, which means Scott can't judge the level of sex hair he might have been sporting earlier. Not that he cares. Or would have cared. Or does care.

"Are you okay?" Stiles asks in concern, and Scott sighs deeply and buries his head in his arms on the table that separates him from Stiles. "Dude, you look _wrecked_."

Scott makes a noncommittal noise of assent into the table, then murmurs, "How was your night?"

"Fantastic," Stiles replies without missing a beat. "What the fuck did _you_ do? Drink your way through every keg?"

"Something like that," Scott mumbles, lifting his head and trying to ignore his heart hammering somewhere closer to his throat than his ribs as he looks at Stiles and finds the courage to ask, "How's Malia?"

Stiles freezes, his pen hovering over the paper that Scott's also supposed to be writing, and chews on his lip in a way that is entirely too distracting before answering. "She's fine. I think."

Scott blinks curiously at him, so he elaborates helpfully, "We didn't actually have sex, dude. We just kind of – "

"Made out a lot," Scott supplies, and Stiles ducks his head, a faint flush overcoming his cheeks. "Just curious," he says casually, and pulls over a book from the pile next to them that he knows he won't ever read. "She's – she's pretty."

Stiles' gaze is piercing on him in a way that sends goosebumps all along Scott's arms. "Yeah," he agrees. "She really is."

-:-

"You're avoiding me," Stiles declares two hours later when he finds Scott sitting outside on the steps that lead to the back of the school and smoking a cigarette, as if two whole hours gone without speaking to him constituates _avoidance_. He's right, of course, but Scott reserves the right to think it's silly, anyway.

"Not avoiding you," Scott disagrees without offering an alternate explanation, exhaling carefully and watching smoke spiral up from his lips. It's almost hypnotizing, helpfully distracting him from registering Stiles' presence properly, at least until his best friend sits down next to him on the sidewalk, shoulders bumping, knees touching, and every part of Scott on fucking _fire_.

This is ridiculous, he thinks, because he can't move. Because no part of his body _wants_ to move even though he _knows_ this is a bad idea. Knows it's a bad idea for a number of reasons, starting from the fact that Stiles used to have a _crush_ on him (and he knows this, and they've laughed about it, but that doesn't make the irony of Scott falling in love with him years after the fact any less painful) and ending somewhere near _Malia and Stiles were making out last night_. And somewhere in the middle, there's _we're best friends_ and _everything might be ruined._ Also, his friends might never let him live it down, either.

"Scott," Stiles says, like the whole world is contained in his name, and Scott closes his eyes and takes another drag instead of looking at him. "_Scott_."

"Stiles," Scott shoots back when he releases the cigarette from his lips, surveying the boring grey sidewalk with a great deal more interest than it warrants. "Everything's _fine_."

"No, it's not." And then – _fuck_, their legs are pressed together and there's smoke in his lungs and Scott has never felt more alive than he does sitting out here with a boy he's in love with and touching along every point of their arms and legs like something out of a fucking romcom.

"Stop worrying about me," Scott mutters, and Stiles' hand finds its way to his leg, palm rested on top and fingers skimming underneath, sending a shiver down his back that he hopes desperately hadn't been noticed even though, logistically, Stiles must have felt his body move.

"I can't," Stiles admits, and when Scott chances a glance over at him, finds him still staring at him, eyes dark with something suspiciously close to desire. His hand starts moving upwards on Scott's leg and _fuck_, this is even more unfair than anything.

He stays silent for a moment, not smoking, not able to think of anything else to say, not with the feeling of Stiles' hand warm and feather-light on his jean-clad leg, not with his every nerve short-circuiting. He's not sure what to do, and he thinks, ruefully, that he _never_ is these days. Not with Stiles. Not like he used to be.

"Malia and I were drunk," Stiles breaks the silence suddenly, his hand dangerously high up on Scott's thigh. "We're just friends. We talked about it. You don't have to – you don't have to worry."

Scott frowns at him. "That's not what you were going to say," he says, vaguely accusatory.

Stiles half-smiles at him and says, "No, I was going to say you don't have to be jealous," and then there is silence again as the words hang there between the two of them, thicker than smoke and heavier than Scott's heart.

"You know," he says finally, unable to find any other way to coherently express the conflicting emotions bubbling up inside him. "You've _known_."

"I have," Stiles agrees and leans forward till their faces are close enough that Scott can inhale his mint-gum-and-alcohol breath. It's the stupidest combination and it still makes him dizzy with desire. "You're an idiot, did you know that?"

"Lydia said the same thing," Scott admits, and then he's _kissing_ him, all soft chapped lips and tongues and teeth, and it's kind of crazy and kind of amazing and kind of everything he's been dreaming about for years, and Stiles' hand slips up under his shirt and _fuck_ if this isn't a romcom, if this isn't his happy ending, if this isn't everything he never really knew he wanted and suddenly can't live without.

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**an:** please don't favorite without reviewing; i'd really appreciate some feedback!


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